


poltergeist •

by softpine



Series: camellia oneshots [5]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:40:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27150553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softpine/pseuds/softpine
Summary: Stevie is bored.
Series: camellia oneshots [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1800172
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28





	poltergeist •

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in literally an hour and didn't beta, sorry if it sucks jfkjsd

Stevie is bored.

It’s a common problem for her. So common, in fact, that she should probably have learned how to deal with it by now, but alas…

She’s already finished her homework, told Marceline the Turtle her whole life story, let her beloved rats (Ratburn, Rizzo, and Remy, of course) run amok, then cleaned up the resulting mess, and she can’t possibly think of anything else to do with her time.

Her dad was supposed to stay at the house this weekend, while her mom flew to New York for a business trip, but he had texted her a few hours ago saying he'd be coming home late.  _ Don't wait up,  _ Owen had written. Stevie rolled her eyes. He may as well have said, _ I'm sleeping with someone _ , in big capital letters. Jo will be pissed when she finds out. Not because she isn't sleeping with other people too — Stevie shudders at the thought — but because he's "acting irresponsibly and taking his child for granted". She can hear the inevitable fight happening in her head, the back-and-forth, useless tennis-match arguments, which always end in a tie despite Jo and Owen’s best efforts.

But that's something for Future Stevie to worry about. Current Stevie just wants to do something fun.

She picks up her old walkie-talkie first, a memento from her childhood that she doesn't mind hanging around. She presses the button on the side and says, "Asa, come in, this is Stevie."

"Hey, what's up?"

"I'm so bored. Please save me."

Asa's laugh crackles through the static. "You're always bored."

"Irrelevant. Are you busy? We can get our Halloween costumes ready! I switched my costume last minute and I need your opinion."

"Aw, I wish I could," Stevie can practically see Asa's pout. "But I told my dad I would watch Sadie today. Mik's working again and Dad can't exactly take Sadie into the studio with him."

"Stevie Wonder did it just fine," she grumbles.

“We can’t all be the amazing Stevie’s of the world,” Asa snorts. "You can come over and help me out if you want?"

"You're just trying to pass the diaper-changing onto someone else."

"Ah, you foiled my plan," Asa says. "I'll talk to you later?"

"Give Sadie kisses from me," Stevie says, and lowers the antennae. 

She's picking up her cell phone before she even knows what she's doing, hitting 4 on speed dial. After Mom, Dad, and Asa, of course.

Elaine picks up on the first ring, like she always does. "Stephanie, my love, how are you?"

"Not this again," Stevie groans. "You're like a dog with a bone."

"It's cute!" Elaine protests. "Anyway, is everything okay? I thought you were doing homework today?"

"I finished early and I'm bored as shit."

"I knew you would, smarty pants."

"We should go for a picnic," Stevie says. "With, like, grapes and cheese. And we can bring that watercolor paint set I got last Christmas and never used!"

"You're  _ seriously  _ describing my heaven right now, but I can't today."

Stevie whines. "Why?"

"My nan is teaching me how to make miến lươn. If I miss it, she'll probably decide to bring the recipe to her grave."

"Ugh. Save some for me?"

"Always!"

Elaine blows lipstick-y kisses into the phone before she clicks off.

Stevie sighs. She doesn’t know what she’s expecting, clicking Jada’s name, but it’s at least worth a shot.

The phone rings for an uncomfortably long time. She can imagine Jada staring at the screen, deciding whether or not to answer. Just when Stevie is about to give up on her, the phone gets picked up.

“This better be an emergency,” Jada says in lieu of a hello.

“Uh…” Stevie considers lying, but she would probably sniff it out. “Not an emergency, just bored?”

The line goes dead.

Stevie flops onto her bed in defeat.

She's about to start flipping through her mental Rolodex of  _ people from school who don't suck that bad _ , when she remembers the cheap, cardboard Ouija board tucked away in her closet. She hasn’t used it since that very first time, when the planchette went hurtling through the air and embedded itself in Asa’s wall. But Finn is her friend too now, isn’t he?

“Finn? Hey, I don’t know how this works or if you can even hear me, but I’m really bored. So if you could bear to be away from Asa for five seconds—” she laughs. “Maybe we can hang out.”

She feels it when the pressure drops around her, almost imperceptible except that she’s waiting for it.

“Fuck, you're cold. How come you can't radiate heat? It's October, it’s cold enough as it is.”

Finn crosses his arms. “Sorry my body temperature isn't up to your standards, princess.”

“You probably said something snarky right there,” Stevie says. “But I’m gonna pretend you said  _ Hi, Stevie, I love you, Stevie, you're the best, St — _ ”

A rubber ball falls off Stevie’s nightstand, flinging itself onto the floor and into the air over and over again.

“Alright, Poltergeist, no need to get agitated,” Stevie picks up the ball and experimentally throws it in Finn’s general direction. The ball flies back at her, a little unsteady, like an uncoordinated child had done it. “Do you think you can use the Ouija board?  _ Without _ putting holes in my wall?”

Though Stevie can’t see it, Finn flips her off.

She digs the box out from under a stack of old clothes, laying the board out on her floor. Finn settles himself across from her and tries to calm his shaking hands. Acting out in a fit of rage is one thing, but controlled, small movements are a whole new beast.

“Okay,” Stevie says, placing two fingers on the planchette. Finn follows suit. “Um… Hm. Did you see the Challenger explosion on live TV?”

Finn is taken aback, his hands sliding over to {NO}. He thought she would ask him something deeper, something everyone always seems to ask.  _ “What does it all mean? Where do we go? What’s the point?” _ But maybe he should have known Stevie would be different.

“Oh, right,” Stevie says. “That was after your time, wasn’t it? Do you want to hear about it anyway? Challenger?”

{YES.}

“It was a space shuttle that was supposed to release tracking satellites into space. On the day of the launch, it was only just above freezing in Florida, but they went ahead with it because they’d already delayed it so many times, and the public was losing interest. The problem was, there are these elastic O-Rings holding crucial joints together, but the seal got broken because of the cold air, which meant hot gases burned a hole in the rocket booster, which made the fuel tank explode, which, in the end, made the space shuttle start breaking apart and falling back down to the ocean. It’s possible that those poor people were alive during all of this, and they only died when they hit the water…”

Stevie pauses, taking a breath. “Sorry, am I talking too much? I do that sometimes.”

{NO.}

“Cool,” Stevie smiles. “Anyway, it was a big deal because Challenger was part of the Teachers In Space Project. NASA really hyped it up, hoping it would keep kids interested in space and that adults would know it’s not as impossibly far away as they thought. It was supposed to be the first of many civilian trips, but… They obviously stopped the program after the first one went so badly.”

Finn concentrates on the planchette, making it jerk from W to O and back to W.

“W-O-W,” Stevie reads. “Wow. Yeah, I know, right?”

She waits patiently as Finn stumbles through a longer sentence.

Y-O-U {NO} L-O-T.

“I know a lot? Yeah, I guess I do,” Stevie shrugs. “Only about space, though; everything else goes way over my head. I do okay in school, but I have to try harder.”

M-E 2.

“Yeah? What’s your favorite class?”

Finn thinks for a second, and then says: L-U-N-C-H.

Stevie swats the air in front of her and Finn shys away, grinning. “I’m serious. What do you like?”

H-I-S-T.

“History? Ew. I mean, good for you, but ew.”

U J-U-S-T G-A-V L-E-S-O-N.

“Just call me Professor Donovan,” Stevie giggles. “Okay, fine, history’s not that bad if it’s interesting. But it usually makes me sad.”

{YES.}

B-U-T H-A-P-Y E-N-D.

“Happy ending? I don’t think we’re taking the same history classes.”

Finn sighs, trying to condense his thoughts into a less-exhausting sentence. His hands are cramping up in a way that he never thought they could — how can they? He doesn’t  _ have _ hands to get cramped.

M-A-Y-B {NO} 4 U-S 2 C.

B-U-T A-L-W-A-Y G-E-T B-E-T-E-R.

“Huh,” Stevie says. “I guess I never thought of it like that, but you’re right… Things always have a way of getting better.”

Finn nods, happy that she understood. 

H-A-N-D T-I-R-E-D.

U T-A-L-K N-O-W.

Stevie’s eyes sparkle. “That’s a dangerous thing to say to me, Finn.”

**Author's Note:**

> i just love writing friendship dynamics so much ;-;


End file.
